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Stress and Burnout Among Gifted Stirdents
141
1985, a modified version of the
SSI
was sent to 17 professionals, each of whom had
authored one or more student stress publications, had conducted quantitative andlor
qualitative student stress research, or had conducted student stress workshops. Of these
surveys, 14
(82%)
were returned in usable condition and were included in the analysis
of the data. Of those who responded,
70%
were male,
70%
were between
25
and 40
years old,
7%
had taught less than five years, while the majority had taught longer,
and over
70%
held advanced degrees. Thirty-six percent had given student stress
workshops; one-third had authored descriptive works about young peoples’ school-related
problems; and two-thirds had conducted qualitative research
(21
Vo),
quantitative research
(360ro),
or research combining both methods
(7%).
Instrumen tation
One instrument was developed (i.e., the SSI) and another adapted (i.e., the MBI)
for this study. Two additional, and already established, inventories were also used.
Student stress.
A pilot form of the SSI was developed based on a review of the
available literature. The surveys sent to the students (Sample A) used a 1-to-5-point
Likert-type scale for the
60
student-stress items that had been adopted:
1
=“NO Strength;
Not Noticeable”;
5
=“Major Strength; Extremely Noticeable” (Fimian, 1984a, 1985).
Using this measure, the students rated the degree
of
perceived impact that each school-
related item had had upon student stress levels. Therefore, respondents were not to signify
the presence or absence
of
classroom stress; rather, they were to indicate the degree
of strength with which it had been experienced.
The survey distributed to the experts contained the same items as those distributed
to the students. For this expert appraisal of content validity, however, each
of
the 60
items was accompanied by
a
different 4-point Likert-type scale (1
=
Not Relevant;
2
=
Somewhat Relevant;
3
=
Quite Relevant; 4
=
Very Relevant). This scale allowed the
experts to determine the degree to which each item was related to their individual con-
cepts of student stress.
Student Burnout.
The second instrument was the revised Maslach Burnout Inven-
tory (MBI) (Maslach
&
Jackson, 1986). This instrument had formerly been used with
regular teachers (Anderson, 1981; Schwab, 1980), special education teachers (Crane,
1981; McIntyre, 1981), and human service workers (Fimian, 1984b). The MBI assesses
burnout by means
of
22
statements about respondents’ attitudes, feelings, and percep-
tions of themselves and their clientele. The scale for each statement varies from
1
(Very
Mild, Somewhat Noticeable) to
7
(Major, Very Noticeable). These statements are grouped
into three factors: (a) Emotional Exhaustion, (b) Depersonalization, and (c) Lack of
Personal Accomplishment. The MBI was developed using factor analysis techniques with
populations of adult human service professionals. The scores do not designate the sub-
jects as “burned out” or “not burned out”; instead, they are placed on a continuum from
“more” to “less burned out.”
The internal consistency reliability estimates of the MBI’s subscales ranged from
.77 to .81 (Maslach
&
Jackson, 1986) and
.75
to .90 (Iwanicki
&
Schwab, 1981) for
adults. Since this was the first time the MBI was used with younger students, two changes
were made in the wording of the items. References to “recipients
of
service” or “students”
were changed to “teachers”; references to “work” and the “workplace” were modified
to read c‘school.’’ Thus the modified MBI would assess school-related burnout experiences,
some
of which entailed problems in interacting with or receiving services from teachers.
Classroom tedium.
Though burnout is frequently associated with role overload in
adults, it has also been linked with role underload or tedium. Since classroom tedium